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Home , The Land Institute, Wes Jackson

The L and Report A publication of / Number 82 / Summer 2005 Contents

Civic : A Cart in Need of Horses Bill Vitek ...... 3

History’s Play on Light and Shadow ...... 6

It’s the William H. MacLeish ...... 13

Why Perennial Are Possible Jake Doll ...... 16

Our Symbiotic Relation with Graduate Students . . . . . 18

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Powwow Roger L. Welsch ...... 20

Tasting the Dust Jean Janzen ...... 21 Our Mission Statement When people, land and community are as one, all Biting the Land That Feeds Us three members prosper; when they relate not as Jim Scharplaz ...... 22 members but as competing interests, all three are exploited. By consulting nature as the source and Rural War ...... 23 measure of that membership, The Land Institute At the Land ...... 24 seeks to develop an agriculture that will save soil from being lost or poisoned while promoting a Prairie Festival 2005 ...... 26 community life at once prosperous and enduring.

Thanks to Our Contributors ...... 27

Prairie Festival 2004 Audio Tapes ...... 28 The Land Report is published three times a year. The Writers and Photographers ...... 30 Editor: Scott Bontz Associate editor and production: Donation Form ...... 31 Darlene Wolf Graphic design: Arrow Printing Arts associate: Terry Evans Printed by Arrow Printing Co. 2440 E. Water Well Rd. Cover: John Szarkowski . From Staff: Ron Armstrong, Salina, KS 67401 Mr. Bristol’s Barn . Wes Jackson Marty Bender, Scott Bontz, Cindy Cox, Stan Cox, (785) 823-5376, phone writes about the connection of Lee DeHaan, Jerry Glover, (785) 823-8728, fax botanist Liberty Hyde Bailey and Stephanie Hutchinson, [email protected] his time with the photographs of Joan Jackson, Wes Jackson, John Szarkowski. See page 6. Patricia Johnson, Steven Lancaster, www.landinstitute.org Grant Mallett, Patty Melander, Bob Pinkall, Harris Rayl, ISSN 1093-1171 Above: Scott Bontz. Fossil halves Steve Renich, John Schmidt, of a fern about 300 million years Tiffany Stucky, David Van Tassel, old, found in northern Illinois. Ken Warren, Darlene Wolf Shown about two-thirds life size. Board of Directors: Strachan Donnelley, Terry Evans, Pete Ferrell, Jan Flora, Dan Glickman, Wes Jackson, Eulah Laucks (emeritus), Mary Laucks, Conn Nugent, Victoria Ranney, John Simpson, Donald Worster, Angus Wright

The Land Report 2 Can laissez-faire economics, technology, consumption and rule of law replace community, social capital, thrift and the common good?

Civic Agriculture: A Cart In Need of Horses

Bill Vitek

Sociologist Thomas A. Lyson coined the term “civic Lyson uses the second half of his book to make the case agriculture” in 1999, and published a book by the same for civic agriculture’s reality, rationality and viability. He name in 2004. Lyson defines civic agriculture as a rightly points out that it never disappeared entirely, and “locally organized system of agriculture and food pro - that it is now enjoying something of a resurgence, both duction characterized by networks of producers who are on the farm and in the academe. He cites influential bound together by place.” His short, accessible and work by social scientists C. Wright Mills, Melville informative book covers themes common to readers of Ulmer and Walter Goldschmidt for evidence of both the The Land Report: economic and civic value of small-scale farming. From the earlier influences of Alexis de Tocqueville and Karl I Beginning with the 1862 Morrill Act’s mission to Polanyi, to a new generation of scholarship, the academe “bring rationality and standardization to agricultural is likewise reinvigorating and reclaiming the relevance production,” American agriculture has a long history of social factors beyond the neoclassical economic indi - of commodification, concentration and consolidation. cators of land, labor, capital and management. I Like modernization of so many other manufactured The news on the farm is promising as well. Lyson products and processes, the winners in industrialized points to the steady growth of farmers selling direct by agriculture are financial lenders, large corporations subscription, restaurant agriculture, farmers markets, and—if cheap, abundant and relatively tasteless food roadside stands, and urban agriculture and community is the goal—well-fed consumers. gardens. Data on these are harder to come by, but Lyson I The losers are small, independent owners and produc - found trends over the past 30 years in New York state ers, and consumers who want diverse, healthful and that show healthy growth across the board. flavorful food choices. Lyson believes promotion of civic agriculture will I Farming has now gone global, further distancing pro - come from the bottom up, from individuals and commu - duction from consumption, and increasing the power nity groups reasserting their rights to healthful food and and influence of fewer companies and those who con - healthy communities, and from local and statewide trol them. Lyson cites a study that identifies a mere efforts that enforce zoning regulations that protect small 138 men and women sitting on the boards of less than farmers, educate consumers about community-based a dozen businesses that control half of the food sold farming and promote institutional policies to buy local in America. food. I The larger effects include erosion of the many and That’s the good news. varied social, economic and even psychological bene - The not-so-good news is that civic agriculture—or fits from the informal networks that put the “culture” whatever we choose to call the varied responses to glob - in agriculture. al-industrial agriculture—is David without a slingshot. I Finally, the logic of unassailability and inevitability Much has been lost from civic infrastructure that made employed by agricultural economists and scientists civic agriculture possible, while the opposition continues masks their inability to measure or even to acknowl - to grow and to concentrate its political, financial and edge social capital and informal economies. structural advantages. I want to offer a more dismal Inevitably, what fails to be measured becomes invisi - assessment of our chances, in hope that by honestly ble, while its proponents—who also tend to be the acknowledging the odds, we have a better shot at over - severest critics of agriculture’s industrialization—are coming them. viewed as irrational, romantic, naive and unpatriotic. A civic agriculture needs both an agricultural and a

The Land Report 3 civic agenda that can respond to the challenges of feed - private ambition, limited government, economic growth, ing 21st century Americans—and the citizens of other technological advancement, consumption and the rule of nations, though not necessarily “the world”—good, law replace community, social capital, public life, thrift, healthful food while giving our farmers a good liveli - virtue and the common good? The status quo answer to hood and protecting ecosystem health. We’ve come a this question has always been an enthusiastic “Yes!” And good distance with agriculture, as readers of this publi - it has been easy to demonstrate, thanks to the United cation know well. But we’ve lost ground on the civic States’ uncommon and largely unacknowledged blessing front. of the world’s greatest geological inheritance: soils and “Civic” means “belonging to the citizen.” What, the rich ecosystem resources they support, and water, then, do we mean by citizen? According to this country’s minerals, coal, oil and gas—now all in a steep, poten - major institutions of government, commerce and educa - tially irreversible decline. The varied social movements tion, not much early in America’s third century, and less in American history —transcendental, progressive, and less all the time. preservation, labor, women’s suffrage, civil rights, envi - The constitutional framers ultimately rejected a tra - ronmental and now civic agriculture—can be interpreted ditional republic where government has a direct role in as an enthusiastic but relatively ineffective “No!” They creating virtuous citizens. They favored a representa - have always been reactions against, rather than replace - tional republic of individuated members free to pursue ments of, the status quo, always trying to slow or derail life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as defined by the train rather than replacing the tracks, and because each of them, and within the confines of the laws they have functioned, at best, as negative rather than designed to keep them apart. In his Democracy’s positive feedback loops. Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy, The civic renewal of which civic agriculture could political philosopher Michael Sandel called it “the pro - be a part will require, then, more than groups of inter - cedural republic.” Alexander Hamilton, America’s first ested folks who want to bring back local farming. It will Treasury secretary, went even further and argued that the require a rejection of the Enlightenment Substitution vices of ambition and vanity, when coupled with finan - Project, or at least its main tenets, and it will require a cial debt, could turn Americans into the hardest working major overhaul and rebuilding of America’s civic infra - people on the planet, and America into a world power. structure. It will require a civic architecture, a civic edu - Alexis de Tocqueville still saw a vibrant civic cul - cation, civic politics, civic economics and civic democ - ture in the America he visited in 1830, but he also saw a racy, to name a few. Such changes must occur at all lev - growing selfishness. Writing in the 1990s, Robert els and stages, not just from the bottom up. Otherwise, Putnam saw a marked erosion of American civic what Lyson calls civic agriculture will be just another engagement and social capital from just a few decades momentary, nostalgic back-to-the-land speed bump. earlier, as measured by newspaper readership, political An example of what happens when infrastructure is meeting attendance, petition signing, writing letters to ignored appears in a recent report by the American the editor, socializing informally with friends, joining Society of Civil Engineers, estimating the costs of unions, eating the evening meal with the whole family, rebuilding America’s roads, bridges and buildings at donating money as a percentage of income, and working $1.6 trillion. (See http://www.asce.org/reportcard/.) It on community projects. (To review Putnam’s work, visit would be an interesting assignment to calculate the eco - http://www.bowlingalone.com/data.php3.) nomic costs of rebuilding America’s civic infrastructures The civic infrastructure and social and political or the social costs of letting them crumble. We need an axioms first explored in 5th century Greece, which iden - American Society of Civic Engineers. tified human beings as social creatures and the city, or This brings us to what supporters of Lyson’s call to polis, as the place where citizens were made, not born, civic agriculture can do as educators, activists and agri - have been on a slow and steady decline that began with culturists. the Enlightenment. The likes of Rene Descartes, Francis For starters, there is always another book to read. Bacon, Immanuel Kant, John Locke, Adam Smith and There are three seemingly far afield from the topic, but others argued that individual reason was king, and that relevant. The first is T.R. Reid’s The of the liberty of each individual required political protec - Europe: The New Superpower and the End of American tion and an economic system to produce individual Supremacy . Reid offers hope that America’s international kingdoms. John Locke claims in his Second Treatise of monopoly—both industrial and political—will soon have Government that with the invention of money, the moral a powerful and friendly rival, though we may have to limit on consumption and “hoarding” was lifted. wait until the European Union constitution is ratified. The American Revolution—still ongoing in my Then, if the EU can make General Electric and Microsoft view—can be seen as the world’s most ambitious appli - heel with antitrust rejections and fines, it may have simi - cation of the Enlightenment Substitution Project: Can lar positive effects on global agricultural conglomerates.

The Land Report 4 The second book is Robert Reich’s The Future of offer perspectives outside the traditional Success: Working and Living in the New Economy. enlightenment/liberalism canon that makes up so much Reich, Labor secretary under President Clinton, nicely of our Western thought about economics, ethics, politics contrasts the assumptions of what he calls the old and and the social sciences. There is plenty to choose from. I new economies. The old economy provided uniform think too that we should be willing to state more explic - products (and not many choices), job security, a relative - itly that “civic” notions fundamentally reject individual - ly compressed salary range (and a middle class), and a istic worldviews. With civic agriculture we are not just near U.S. monopoly on production. The new economy shifting what, where and how we grow and eat food, but provides high-value production that gives individual acknowledging a philosophical and political model as consumers exactly what they want, a mobile work force, old as Aristotle: that humans are social creatures in need wage and job instability (and a collapsing middle class), of social structures and conventions. It is time to show and global trade and competition. While Reich does not the weaknesses and dangers in the modern, individualis - discuss agriculture specifically, civic agriculture may be tic conceptual framework, and to offer viable civic alter - an example of the new economy, as it provides a net - natives. work of small sellers supplying niche products to Wes Jackson has said that if we do not get sustain - demanding consumers—Lyson’s restaurant agriculture ability into our agriculture there will be no need to get it comes to mind. The results will be products with high - anywhere else. We will starve long before we can figure er value and prices, and a greater focus on quality, not out how to digest sustainably redesigned carpets and cell just for the food itself but for the producer and the land. phones. Thomas Lyson is certainly right to point us Thirdly, there is Joseph Meeker’s The Comedy of toward the theory and practice of a civic agriculture, a Survival: Literary Ecology and a Play Ethic. It is an old culture of food production, distribution and consumption book, but a wonderful tonic for those who struggle in a that honors local places, respects the health of con - tragic mode against the very real and often dangerous sumers and rewards small producers for their commit - forces of industrial agriculture. Meeker reminds us that ment to quality and stewardship. It is a big job that there is an alternative literary tradition based not on begins, of course, with those closest to the soil. But the tragedy, but on comedy. As he puts it: necessary civic structures that support and make possi - ble the civic agriculturist’s successes are in serious dis - The comic way is the path of reconciliation. When repair, and they will require the efforts of many hands the usual patterns of life are disrupted, the comic and skill sets to shore them up. spirit strives for a return to normalcy. The comic vision is not polarized, but complex: Comedy sees many aspects simultaneously, and seeks for a strate - gy that will resolve problems with a minimum of pain and confrontation. The comic way is not heroic or idealistic; rather it is a strategy for survival.

As activists and agriculturists, we should continue work - ing locally to develop civic infrastructure, not just civic agriculture. This means working on zoning, taxes and local economic initiatives both within and outside of agriculture. It also means looking and acting regionally, nationally and internationally. Think broadly. Imagine for example, what it would take to bring back a vibrant horse-driven economy that would work alongside the current modern one. It would need a heck of a lot more than horses. It would require laws, regula - tions, horse professionals and educational, architectural and engineering redesigns. It would require a major transformation, and not just local or even regional. As educators—and we’re all educators in one form or another—I think there is quite a bit we can do. First, we should connect civic agriculture to other civic move - ments. There’s a genuine civic resurgence going on across disciplines and across the country. Let’s talk about it. Secondly, I think we should be more willing to

The Land Report 5 History’s Play on Light and Shadow

Wes Jackson

When John Szarkowski: Photographs opened at the San architecture informed by a sun-powered world and wed - Francisco Museum of Modern Art, exhibition curator ded to traditional barns. Sandra Phillips asked me to be on the opening day pro - Here also was an America caught up in the first gram, The Lens on the Land . She said she would like me great questioning of this political experiment, this new to include comments about the work of botanist Liberty nation. The Civil War forced these people to ask why Hyde Bailey. That was a relief. As a scientist, I can hide “the last, best hope of earth,” the United States of behind what Bailey wrote: “The arts and sciences are to America, was endangered. By naming him Liberty, interact together.” Also, I can say a lot more about the Bailey’s family must have been continually reminded grand old dean at Cornell University than I can about that 600,000 men and boys “gave the last full measure photography. of devotion.” And when Liberty was 7, the first great My friend Terry Evans warned me that photographic political crime in America happened, the assassination artists don’t want their work regarded as mere documen - of a president. tary. I struggled with this, and after looking at more of And the bloodletting was not over even though our Szarkowski’s photographs, it came to me that the best economic relationship to one another was to have been documentation of an era is represented in its highest art. raised with the elimination of slavery. Now the guns of And, taking comfort in Bailey’s notion that “the doc - government were used to kill Indians. In the same peri - trines of pure science or pure art are both bad doc - od and place an estimated 60 million bison were nearly trines,” I hit upon the notion that the highest art opens wiped off the face of the earth. The big trigger puller the windows that allow the metaphysical reality of the against both natives was that huge abstraction: Manifest time to shine through. John Szarkowski’s photos do that. Destiny. Szarkowski says Liberty Hyde Bailey’s writings What The Origin of Species introduced to the inspired him. Bailey must have inspired thousands. But I thought of Bailey’s time was another matter. A quarter know of no artist other than John Szarkowski who so of a millennium before , Copernicus and Galileo had explicitly stated that he had drawn so much from Bailey. jerked Earth from the center of the universe, to be I had admired Szarkowski’s photographs for many years, replaced by the sun. Our home was now a run-of-the- but now I had an assignment that caused me to ask this mill planet circling around what we would later learn question: What reflected light from Bailey’s life shows was a run-of-the-mill star. And now here was Darwin, in them? And because it is hard to think of light without drawing on his fascination with geology and natural his - thinking of shadows, there came another question: What tory, to make us reconsider our relationship to other darkness of Bailey’s era informed Szarkowski’s shad - beings. Darwin said that we and all other life forms ows? were shaped by the forces of natural selection rather America has always been about transition, and than by the hands of God, as we understood both hands Bailey’s era was no exception. I think that it saw the and God. greatest transition to date. Bailey was born on March I think that when Bailey wrote The Outlook to 15, 1858. He was in his 97th year when he died on Nature and The Holy Earth early in the 20th century, he Christmas night in 1954. His birth is close to when the was describing our relationship to creation with a deep subject of the Szarkowski book Mr. Bristol’s Barn was understanding of our embeddedness in its ecology. built in East Chatham, New York. In the next calendar Bailey may have felt suffocated by a growing scientific year, 1859, John Brown would be hanged at Harper’s establishment devoted to the reductionism of Bacon and Ferry, and in Pennsylvania Col. Drake would drill the Descartes, and the implications of Galileo and Newton’s world’s first oil well. There is a third event in 1859 con - discoveries. About that I don’t know. What I do know is nected to the life and thought of Liberty Hyde Bailey: that a darkness of spirit came out of the Enlightenment. Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species appeared in London The souls of many shriveled when told that we are nei - bookstores. ther the center of the universe nor the direct creation of That Civil War era barn that John Szarkowski pho - the hands of God. Bailey was almost certainly not igno - tographed was probably built by a Yankee, but, more rant of Darwin’s writings. His major professor at importantly, it was built in a world powered almost Harvard was Asa Gray, Darwin’s primary defender in entirely by the sun. Coal was helping run Northern America and America’s first great plant taxonomist. industry, while a larger percentage of the South ran on Bailey must have known that Gray believed Darwin’s muscle power, much of it from slaves. But here still was findings were compatible with belief in an intelligent

The Land Report 6 John Szarkowski. From Mr. Bristol’s Barn .

The Land Report 7 Cornell University Library . Liberty Hyde Bailey, right, and Junior Extension Group at the Tompkins County, New York, school picnic, 1905.

creator. Gray wrote a series of articles for the Atlantic Fifty years after Darwin’s book came a moment Monthly in 1860 that impressed Darwin to provide this grossly overlooked. It was a turning point in the history motto for an English edition: “Natural Selection not of agriculture, indeed, the history of the world, which inconsistent with Natural Theology.” But in the fall of came midway through Bailey’s life. In 1909, two 1860 Darwin withdrew, saying, “I grieve to say that I Germans, Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch, invented the cannot honestly go as far as you do about design.” process that made it possible to use natural gas to turn Whatever the source, in Bailey’s writings we are atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia. Now, through an encouraged to not adopt any alien and distanced view of understandable alchemy, we could make a that the earth. We will do better if we root ourselves in the doubled, tripled, even quadrupled crop yields. Without world of nature unfolding around us: Haber-Bosch, according to Vaclav Smil, one of our fore - “The worm that burrows, the field mouse that scoots most scholars on nitrogen, 40 percent of humanity under the grass, wild fowl winging across heaven all add would not be here. meaning to life.” Until that discovery, and even for another 50 years, “Nature is the norm. In agriculture, adapt one’s work farming relied primarily on practices that drew on natu - to nature.” ral fertility. Note the manure spreader in the 1957 photo - “Live, in right relation with nature is the lesson a graph by John Szarkowski on the opposite page. It is wise farmer learns.” probably coming from the lower story of the barn with This is the light that shines from Bailey’s writings. straw bedding rich in manure and urine. Bailey had the They are beams directing away from the pitfalls of science for this sort of farming down, and during the reductive thinking at the time, the “we-are-nothing-but first half of his life a sophisticated science developed mentality.” around traditional agriculture running almost exclusively Bailey and the barn in Szarkowski’s photos were on sunlight. But on that Christmas night in 1954 when born before John Brown’s body would begin its molding Liberty Hyde Bailey died, industrialized societies were in the grave, born before the pumping of liquid fossil poised for rapid acceleration in the use of commercial carbon that had been squeezed out of bodies born long fertilizer featuring nitrogen. The manure spreader would ago in geologic time. These are the bodies that would soon become a relic. change the world in death perhaps more than when they With the passing of Bailey and a few others from were alive. They sponsored the industry that provided the his time, particularly Albert Howard and J. Russell slack that gave Darwin time to sail around the world, to Smith, the most articulate, knowledgeable and well- explore for five years, to investigate, think and write for known minds directed toward farming within the earth’s another 23, and to finally publish his thoughts in 1859. natural limits were gone.

The Land Report 8 Farm near Caledonia, Minnesota. From John Szarkowski: Photographs .

The Land Report 9 Bailey lived during the most dramatic transition in the 10,000-year history of agriculture. From the first oil well in 1859 until he was 80 years old in 1938, only 3 percent of all the oil burned to our time had been used. A person 48 years old today has lived through 90 per - cent of all that oil burning. A 23-year-old has lived through half of it. John Szarkowski’s photographs show the sun-powered world disappearing, along with its ideals and cultural wisdom. As has said, animal husbandry would become animal science. Agronomics would become crop science. Agriculture would become agribusiness. High energy sponsoring both fertility and traction combined to destroy both bio - logical and cultural information in the largest energy war among life forms in the planet’s history. I can’t tell how many of Szarkowski’s photographs stand alone to show Bailey’s insights and values. But a good place to begin is Mr. Bristol’s Barn , with Szarkowski’s pictures plus his selections from Philo Blinn’s diary, written as a family pursued daily living in an age marked by the Civil War. This barn, in its intricacy and fine workmanship, is a memorial to the sun-powered farm.

John Szarkowski. From Mr. Bristol’s Barn .

Here we see the fork that dropped down on a wag - onload of loose hay, caught a bunch by releasing the tongs, and then was lifted up to the mow with a combi - nation of ropes and pulleys powered by the same team that had pulled the hay rack in from the field. Men and boys pushed this loose hay around in the loft with hay forks and muscle power. The barn loft was the farm’s fuel tank. Below, in the barn’s stalls, draft animals ate oat and hay for muscle that gave the farm its traction. They bedded down for a New England winter night in straw from the crop, and left their manure and nitrogen-rich urine to be forked into the manure spreader and returned to the fields. When diesel and gasoline tanks arrived, the loft that housed sunlight captured on the farm was no longer needed. And with arrival of the anhydrous ammonia tank, sponsored by natural gas, neither was the lower story of the barn as nitrogen collector. The practitioners of modern science marked this industrial revolution on the farm by calling for better days through better ways. It was a heady time.

The Land Report 10 We see another part of the story in Norman Rockwell’s County Agent , which appeared on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post in 1948. For models Rockwell had used real people in Jay County, Indiana. I made phone calls to find out what had happened with them. The picture’s focus of attention, the county agent, had died. So had the father, the man off to the left in the shadows with the cat on his shoulder. The boy with the poultry project farmed until he died in 1988. The dutiful girl holding the calf and her 4-H record book left the farm to marry and raise children. So did the girl with the sewing project. They never farmed. Neither did any of the children of the kids in the painting. Rockwell painted what would get writ large in American agricul - ture. Expertise and youth are central. Tradition and experience are peripheral. Norman Rockwell Family Trust.

Mr. Anderson and Son, near Sandstone, Minnesota. From John Szarkowski: Photographs.

That message is very distant from the one in this Szarkowski photo from 1957. Here we have a father and son side by side on their Minnesota farm. This is one of my favorite Szarkowski photographs. No expert stands between them, or needs to. They are in front of a crib designed to dry corn on the cob. That crib is probably gone, and the corn picked on that same farm today probably is shelled in the com - bine and immediately sent to the elevator to be dried

The Land Report 11 with natural gas. The farm has probably been drenched with chemicals designed to kill the pests that threaten crops. I would not be surprised to learn that there was a milk cow pasture that has been plowed and planted to row crops, and that the soil erodes, and the nitrogen heads downstream to choke life in the Gulf of Mexico. Mr. Bristol’s barn still stands, an artifact of civiliza - tion. What makes it a mere artifact are the oil wells for which that one dug in 1859 was prototype. Those and the later natural gas wells in combination provided the energy that destroyed the information which built that barn and the surrounding culture.

John Szarkowski. From Mr. Bristol’s Barn .

From this photo it appears that the entire farm is Adapted from a talk for the opening of John grassed down. It is a beautiful place, and I am glad that Szarkowski’s exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of the barn and house have been appreciated enough to Modern Art in February. The show will be at the have been saved. Perhaps at the end of the fossil fuel Milwaukee Art Museum from September 30 through epoch those who follow us will go to see how those January 1, 2006, at the Museum of Modern Art in New before us did it. I don’t mean the post and beam con - York from February 1 through April 30, 2006, and at the struction so much as the arrangements necessary for a Museum of Fine Arts in Houston from June 18 through sun-powered agriculture in that particular place. September 10, 2006. There is a book of the pictures And then the writings of the grand old Cornell dean called John Szarkowski: Photographs . 1905. will come alive for a culture hurrying to catch up to the past, where discipline, restraint, frugality and thrift are once again part of our everyday action and not just vo- cabulary. And John Szarkowski will be a text in an inde - spensible library on how to farm and live well.

The Land Report 12 Americans like to think they have made themselves great, but their wealth has come from their land. And now we desperately need a fresh grip on this reality.

It’s the ecology

William H. MacLeish

I’ve been wondering what it is in America’s history and Our self-confidence, and the energy that went with character that makes us at once so successful and so it, kept us going during the few generations we needed destructive. Oddly, I have come to believe that the to get the hang, not only of survival, but of surplus. We beginnings of an answer can be found in the writings of then opened this country like an oyster, and, as we Rudyard Kipling. I say oddly because the title of Paul changed it, it changed us. Our faith, once directed more and Anne Ehrlich’s foreboding book, One with Nineveh: toward spiritual than material rewards, became one that Politics, Consumption, and the Human Future , comes made us feel good when we did well. And well we did. from a Kipling poem. It is Recessional , published in There, in the middle of all those waves of grain and 1897, a prayer for divine support as Britain’s power slips fruited plains, we became masters at blowing our own away. You know the lines: horn. I myself retain a certain delight in reading about the Far-call’d our navies melt away— ringtailed roarer, the souped-up clown of the frontier On dune and headland sinks the fire— who wagged his crooked elbows like the king of chick - Lo, all our pomp of yesterday ens and hollered that he could jump the Ohio and wade Is one with Nineveh and Tyre! the Mississippi, that he hadn’t had a decent fight in days and was consequently commencing to get wolfish Nineveh and Tyre, you’ll recall, were ancient cities east around the head and shoulders and would shortly have of the Mediterranean whose cultures, like so many oth - to be salted down or he’d spoil. ers—including in our hemisphere the Mayan, the They have never gone away, those half-horse, half- Anasazi, the Cahokian—rose to glory and then slid into alligators. They were there to boost the national mania ruin. Their falls came from a complexity of causes, for building roads for the newfangled automobile. One some of which lay in that they did not know how to—or of them crowed that paving over the country would cre - chose not to—interact intelligently with the natural ate “one highly organized proficient unit of dynamic, processes that sustained them. result-getting force electric with zeal.” While double- But what caught my attention in Kipling’s work was bitted axes and misery whips were taking down the not a poem but a bit of plain prose. In a dispatch, great forests north of Chicago, one child of progress Kipling remarked on the prevalence of uncontainable opined that “centuries will hardly exhaust the pineries pride in country evinced by so many Americans he above us.” One century was all it took. talked to during a four-year stay here. One stranger As always, there were clearer heads. A man who had refused to get out of Kipling’s face until told that there made his pile in those same pineries later had this to say was nothing to equal such patriotism back in the about Manifest Destiny: “The habitual weakness of the writer’s home country. “Always tell an American this,” American people is to assume that they have made Kipling advised his readers. “It soothes him.” themselves great, whereas their greatness has been in Americans, of course, have always rejoiced in our large measure thrust upon them by a bountiful provi - boosters. How could it have been otherwise? The first dence which has given them forests, mines, fertile soil, whites here left their history, their very continuity, back and a variety of climate to enable them to sustain them - in their home countries. How could they have main - selves in plenty.” tained a semblance of sanity in their newfound wilder - Today, we are so powerful that a little communal ness if they had not carried with them the seeds of what cool might seem in order. Yet our boosters and boasters became an oversized view of themselves? tell us our country is better than any other, that our God

The Land Report 13 is better than any other, that we are the only people pure come apart, and individual species often move by them - enough to bring democracy to the world. Needless to selves to different habitats. say, the world is not amused. Some parts of the country and the world will bene - If we ever slow down enough to look closely at our - fit from future range change, and some won’t. Our selves, we may come to realize that we are no longer the Southeast, for example, might lose most of its trees. young giant among nations that Rudyard Kipling saw I’ve seen projections showing that within a century and many here still profess to see. In fact, ours is now most if not all of the maple-beech-birch forest I live in one of the oldest governmental systems in the industrial - and love will be gone from New England, though some ized world. We don’t need soothing. What we desperate - of it may remain in Canada. All told, range change in ly need is a fresh grip on reality. this country, along with other factors, may reach such I listen to the boosters and an unwelcome question proportions that within a century half of the American arises: Is it possible that nothing fails like success? Is it land will no longer be able to support the plants, and possible that its sweet smell will lead us, and with us therefore the animals, that live there now. most of the world, over the clif f ? One expert answers Often such climate change is more rapid than many with another question: What will happen if in time the affected species can handle. And that, the loss of habitat world has “twice as many people who might be seeking and consequently of , is what has worried the three times as much food and fiber, consuming four eminent sociobiologist E.O. Wilson. Wilson told times as much energy in five to 10 times as much eco - Congress early in the 1980s that it will take millions of nomic activity?” It only takes a little reflection to realize years to repair the damage. “This,” he said, “is the folly that Adam Smith’s famous invisible hand is now giving our descendants are least likely to forgive us.” us an increasingly visible finger. Glaciers are melting today, from Mount Our impact on the physical world, the world on Kilamanjaro to Glacier National Park, and should be which we are entirely dependent for our survival, is the gone from these spots in not too many decades. (I won - product of population, affluence and technological der what the new name for the park will be. Ice Was advance. The population problem has already been Nice, perhaps?) At the poles, sea ice is also melting. In addressed in many countries with enough success that fact, recent evidence from Antarctica shows that the earlier and more disturbing projections of growth have process can be much more rapid than scientists have been reduced. Nonetheless, the new models predict been predicting. Whether or not that turns out to be global growth will climb from 6-plus to 9 or 10 billion true, the meltwater produced, along with the effect of in the next century or so. warming on ocean volume, will cause considerable The industrialized countries will escape a lot of the rises in sea level. That is not good news for places like pressure that will devastate so many of the poorer ones, New Orleans and Miami. but even among the rich the old saw that there is We like to call what ails the environment “prob - strength in numbers will no longer apply. Especially on lems,” probably because we are comforted by the fact our home ground. Americans now number 290 million. that problems usually—most Americans would say We may grow to over 400 million before countervailing almost always—have solutions. These are not problems, forces apply the brakes. though, they are trends. You don’t solve a trend, you try And something new is being added to the picture: to alter its course. the rise of consumption in countries that are fast devel - A main objective in such alteration is to ease our oping, like China and India and a score of others. The pressure on the various environmental “services,” a beneficiaries of economic growth there are demanding somewhat anthropocentric term for functions without the very items that prosperous Americans want, none which mankind would have gone missing long ago. more so than cars. If in China future car ownership Perhaps the most important is nutrient cycling, the climbs to current American levels, the total number of breakdown of all dead organisms into materials that vehicles in the world will nearly double, vastly increas - enrich soils so they can continue to support life. Some ing tailpipe emissions and with them the pace of global others are pollination, cleansing of air and water, control warming. of both drought and flooding, and, of course, of climate. Scientists have been able to measure the past effects One way of protecting these services is through hon - of global climate change by studying the remains of est pricing. As things are, producers price their goods plants and animals that lived during the coming and according to the costs of production plus some profit. going of the last ice age, the one that was at its maxi - Honest pricing would add, as an additional cost, the mum here roughly 20,000 years ago. They find that damage to environmental services caused by that pro - small temperature shifts affect where living things live. duction. For example, the honest price of automobiles Just a few degrees down or up can send them south or and their fuels would reflect the damage to nature they north looking for better digs. Ecological communities cause.

The Land Report 14 Researchers are focusing increasingly on the struc - been right when he said that getting an ecological edu - ture of a world that could recover from the damage cation left him to live alone in a world of wounds. But we’ve dealt it. They talk about the establishment of, say, he is wrong today. There are now thousands of us who a National Environmental Authority in this country. It keep him company. There cannot help but be many more would be, like the Federal Reserve, mostly independent who will come to agree with him that “a thing is right and thus able to take the actions that legislators do not when it tends to preserve the integrity, beauty and stabil - have the political courage to tackle. They talk about new ity of our biotic community.” approaches to international environmental law that could Two noted cultural historians were also right: Joseph improve the efficiency of negotiations over things like Campbell, when he lamented that “the world is full of overpopulation, overconsumption and pollution. those who have stopped listening to themselves,” and They talk also about what they call “biophilia,” Thomas Berry, when he warned, “We never knew referring to what is left of a deep human love for the enough, nor were we sufficiently intimate with all our world around us. I prefer to use a simpler term. I call it cousins in the great family of the earth, each telling its a native sense. own story. The time has now come, however, when we For more than 99 percent of our time on this planet, will listen or we will die.” we lived as foragers—hunters and gatherers. Ours was I think we will listen, if only because we would subsistence living. Don’t knock it. The word means “exis - rather not die. It may take a string of disasters to open tence in reality.” People were less aware then, according our ears, but we will listen. There is evidence of new to the mythologist Mircea Eliade, “of belonging to the activism around the world. Grass-roots activity has been human species than of a kind of cosmic-biologic partici - a prime mover of such great causes as civil and pation in the life of their landscape.” We were “part of” women’s rights. If and as more of us speak out, the then—we had to be to survive. We were not “apart from.” quintessential cause of nature’s rights may be added to We remember that tie to nature, even those of us who the list. never leave our cities. We remember whenever we hear I’m working on a bit of drama in preparation for thunder or the aspirations of the rain. We remember as just that eventuality. I see a future Carl Rove, tough as one season becomes another, when we look up and see ever, hanging up a huge poster in his campaign office. and hear migrating geese in their high formations. It reads, “It’s the ecology, stupid!” We can build on that remembrance, that built-in link with the world of which we are, to get corporate Adapted from a talk at The Land Institute’s 2004 about it, little more than a wholly owned subsidiary. We Prairie Festival. can make native sense an important part of a new edu - cational effort that gives the environment its just due in human affairs. Opposition to this and other environmental advances will be intense, particularly from those who refuse to believe that beings as grand as we are should be depend - ent on, for God’s sake, trees. But some politicians are coming around to these ideas. Some of our largest cor - porations have seen the light and are trying to reduce their load on the planet. A growing number of wealthy Americans , most conspicuously Bill Gates of Microsoft, are using their money to improve the quality of human life. Some conservative religious leaders are declaring that doing harm to God’s creation is a sin. But the sad fact is that very few presidents or poten - tates anywhere in the world will want to talk about the problem or about the fact that they are not talking about the problem. Which one of them would be comfortable about stepping to a microphone and saying, “Good morning, my fellow citizens. I thought you’d like to know that we are well on the way to committing ecolog - ical suicide”? It is possible that the zipped lip evidenced by our leaders might be helpful. It could give the followers more of an opportunity to lead. Aldo Leopold may have

The Land Report 15 Only by our picking favorites and coddling them have annuals like corn and come to feed us so much.

Why Perennial Grains are Possible

Jake Doll

The plants that cover the few untouched patches of the one thing well, rather than two things poorly. Great Plains have their roots deep in prehistory. They Let’s take a look at annual and perennial plants’ con - are the same species that have thrived for thousands of trasting specializations. Annual plants grow from a seed, years on black soil and hot prairie wind, surviving flood, reproduce and die within one growing season. They drought and bison hooves. They build strong roots, use invest a large portion of their resources in reproduction. every available resource, and put these resources back Not equipped to face the difficulties of winter or the into the soil when they die. long-term assaults of insects and disease, the annual A walk through native prairie is a relaxing experi - plant gives rise to the next generation of the species ence. The ground is steady beneath your feet. Keep through the production of hardy and plentiful seed. A walking, though, and you’re sure to encounter a very perennial plant, by contrast, gives more resources to different scene. A fence line or ditch will mark food storage, to defense against competitors and pests, your passage out of prehistory and into the troubling and to permanent structures like roots, stems and leaves. future of our land. The broad field that greets you, There seems to be a clear trade-off. Plants can invest whether of gently waving wheat or yellow-tasseled corn, their resources—nutrients, carbon—either in seeds or in may look reassuringly healthy, but it has none of the structures that allow perenniality. prairie’s solidity. This type of land use is not sustainable. So, is it possible to develop a perennial plant with a It requires a huge input of energy to maintain, and even high seed yield? Won’t each increase in seed number with this energy it cannot be maintained indefinitely. and size take away resources, gram for gram, from stor - The Land Institute wants to make crop land behave age structures? Won’t we lose those valuable perennial more like native prairie. We believe that the use of characteristics: deep roots, hardiness, pest resistance? perennial crops will make agriculture more sustainable. In nature, this appears to be true. Annuals spread Perennials, like the native grasses of the prairie, are quickly across an open environment. They spring up plants that live for years. Annual crops like corn and after a fire, drought or any other event that disturbs the wheat die and must be replanted. Perennials are better land. Their strategy is to multiply rapidly, cover the than annuals at controlling erosion, maintaining soil fer - available territory with their plentiful seed, and then die. tility, and surviving disease and pests. The seed will guarantee future generations. Perennials, Unfortunately, most perennial plants do not produce like Indiangrass or switchgrass, settle into their environ - large quantities of seed like domestic annuals. They ments and build extensive roots. They put less into seed have been ignored as viable crop species for millennia. over one season, since they’ll live and produce seed for Today, with modern techniques and an many years. Annuals and perennials have different but understanding of plant genetics, it may be possible to equally effective ways of dealing with nature’s chal - create a with the productivity of an lenges. Any attempt to change them, to make annuals annual, a plant that can support our growing population. more perennial or perennials more annual, will make a But there remain many unresolved issues in the search less able plant, upsetting, in essence, the balance that for a crop that has both high seed yield and the charac - nature has set. This does not mean that a productive teristics of native grasses. is impossible, only that, in natural envi - Evolution favors specialization. Each species, over ronments, it has not evolved on its own. By changing the course of millennia, has evolved a particular set of the environment, cross-breeding annuals and perennials, characteristics to survive in a particular manner in a par - and actively selecting the desired characteristics, we can ticular environment. Other characteristics, those that are overcome the evolutionary constraints that have limited too costly or unsuitable, are abandoned. Scientists call perennial seed yield, creating new and exciting plants this an evolutionary trade-off: the species evolves to do with both annual and perennial characteristics.

The Land Report 16 Here’s how advantages of perenniality help make tics of native prairie: efficiency, , high pro - this possible. Perennial plants, with big, living roots, can ductivity. Don’t judge the potential of perennial grains begin photosynthesis earlier than annuals, and often solely by bushels per acre. Industrial agriculture, with its continue long after annuals have died. On average, natu - huge input of fossil fuels and chemicals, is currently the ral systems dominated by perennials create more organic most productive strategy. But in the coming years, as carbon than agricultural systems, dominated by annu - petroleum becomes scarce and expensive, annuals’ yield als—despite synthetic industrial inputs. With their advantage will disappear. We’ll need plants that produce longer growth time they can earn a greater carbon abundant grain without irrigation or . “salary.” In the first year after planting a perennial will The Land Institute’s efforts at breeding perennial spend more than an annual on building structures such grain species have achieved some encouraging as rhizomes, tubers, fleshy roots and crowns, like mak - results. Crossing annual wheat with a perennial called ing a down payment on a house or car. But in each sub - wheatgrass has made many new plants with genes of sequent year perennials can have a lesser construction both. Some of these plants have plump seeds and show cost than annuals starting from scratch. Some of this regrowth after harvest. Similarly, breeding of unused salary could be applied to seed. The gram-for- with johnsongrass has produced a population of plants gram trade-off theory is oversimplified. It doesn’t that contain all the necessary genes for perennial grain account for the complexity of the environment and plant development. Illinois bundleflower, a perennial Plains genetics. native, already can yield near the average for soybeans We must also realize that a new environment will in central . We’re working with another high- dramatically change the relationship between persistence yielding perennial Plains native, maximilian sunflower. and seed production. Wild perennials have low seed pro - While these efforts have yet to produce an economi - duction because they are contending with other plants cally viable crop, it is clear that breeding programs with for limited resources. The prairie is a competitive place, perennials can succeed. Twenty-five to 50 years of where water, light and minerals are precious. Wild annu - research will be necessary to produce a true perennial als that engage in this competition also have smaller grain, but this investment of time seems trivial when seeds than their domestic cousins. It is only in the artifi - considering the advantages. Perennial grains have the cial environment of the farm that annuals, selected over potential to greatly ameliorate the dismal ecological the course of 10,000 years of agriculture, can afford to prospect of global grain agriculture. place so much of their carbon in the form of seeds. They Imagine a stroll through a wheat field with all the are coddled with nitrogen-rich fertilizer, irrigation, and strength of the prairie, a dense mixture of perennials disease and insect control. Perennials have never been clinging to the earth, nurturing it, but also producing a offered this favoritism. Less competition could free crop sufficient for our food needs. This is no longer an them to evolve the big, plentiful seeds that we require idle dream. We have the tools to make it a reality. The for food production. By changing the environment, we Land Institute is looking beyond outdated models of alter the trade-off equation. evolutionary trade-offs to explore the promise of peren - Our greatest advantage is the plant breeder. In the nial grains. native prairie, excessively high seed yield is wasteful. These plants tend to be crowded out by their better adapted neighbors, an example of natural selection. An artificial environment, like agriculture, will allow a plant breeder to apply artificial selection. In our farms and greenhouses, where soil nutrients are less locked up by competitors than in prairie, the breeder will select plants that have the traits we desire. This same principle has been practiced unwittingly by farmers since the dawn of agriculture. They reserved seeds from favored plants for subsequent planting, artificially selecting for characteristics that, over time, made the annual grains we now recognize as wheat, corn, rice, etc. Today, with an understanding of plant genetics and molecular biolo - gy, we can do the same work in a fraction of the time. We are ready to apply these skills to perennials. Of course, the goal is not to create perennials that are just like wheat or corn, but rather to fashion plants that can produce grain while emulating the characteris -

The Land Report 17 Our Symbiotic Relation with Graduate Students

For help in reforming agriculture, The Land Institute Greg W. Shepherd reaches into the seminal ground of higher education. Iowa State University Our graduate fellowship program funds master’s degree and doctoral students to do research advancing Comparing Soil Water Dynamics our development of agriculture patterned after natural Among Annuals and Perennials ecosystems. This work might otherwise not happen, Getting perennials into agriculture because it is perceived as too risky, too lengthy or depends on understanding soil water unnecessary for today’s agriculture. Students can take dynamics in both annual and perenni - advantage of major universities’ resources. al plant communities. My questions: The program plants the seeds of our ideas for school 1) Will different types of vegetation cause changes in research and for when these bright young people move depth from which plants take up moisture? 2) Will dif - on to their life’s work. ferences in vegetation affect soil moisture? Fellows receive up to $9,000 annually. We have Measurements come from six plots: corn field, soybean awarded 58 fellowships since the program began in field, brome pasture, restored prairie, restored savanna 1998. For more see www.landinstitute.org. and degraded woodland. I will study where plants get Following are sketches of work by the new fellows water and how deep their roots are, and monitor soil who attended our weeklong June fellows workshop. moisture and groundwater.

Lauren Young Indiana University

How Neighbor Plants Affect Illinois Bundleflower Illinois bundleflower is a prairie legume that The Land Institute is working to domesticate. I will study the effect of neighboring plants, such as grasses, on bundleflower establishment, persistence, and interaction with insect herbivores and nitrogen-fix - ing bacteria. There will be experiments in plots where bundleflower was planted in varied density with perenni - al wheatgrass, which the institute is breeding with wheat, and in tallgrass prairie with bundleflower. This will help inform use of bundleflower in natural systems agriculture.

Brent Hulke University of Minnesota

Perennial sunflower development In past years I have bred domestic oilseed sunflower with wild perennial sunflowers. The offspring were peren - nial. I continue to make crosses between descendants and the domestic sunflower to improve characteristics of the population. In the end I hope to produce sun - flower varieties with white mold resistance, high yield, good oil quality and ability to overwinter in cold envi - ronments like Minnesota.

The Land Report 18 Steve Culman Matthew Rouse Cornell University Kansas State University

Exploring Microbe Diversity Natural Patterns of Disease I will compare the diversity and com - Management munity structure of soil bacteria and In developing a perennial fungi in a prairie with an annual grain of grain plants, disease management system. This knowledge will help us must change from using new plant manage and sustain soil fertility in varieties and genetic engineering, to the perennial of natural systems agriculture. using genetically diverse populations. This is one way natural plant communities control disease. The resist - ance of the tallgrass prairie’s dominant species, big Brett Mattingly bluestem, is relatively high. I will measure how one Indiana University resistance gene in big bluestem varies among plants. This will set a benchmark of natural disease manage - Assembling Perennial Polycultures ment for natural systems agriculture. to Enhance Productivity and Maintain Diversity Plant diversity is essential to natural Julia Piaskowski systems agriculture because it pro - Washington State University vides pest resistance, soil maintenance and increased productivity. In plant communities, how - Breeding Perennial Wheat with a ever, competitively dominant species can threaten diver - Wild Relative sity. Plant species may become dominant as a result of This project examines the results of the order in which they are established in a community. I incorporating large portions of the tall will alter the sequence in which native prairie species wheatgrass genome into perennial are established, to study how community assembly can wheat hybrids by crossing them with manage dominant species and maintain the diversity and each other. Which chromosomes will productivity of perennial polycultures over time. be retained or lost? Does the sex of the parent influence chromosome fate? In addition to perenniality, wild grasses confer novel disease resistance, stress tolerance Whitney Broussard and other valuable genetic resources. The development Louisiana State University of perennial wheat is a key part of natural systems agriculture. Linking 100 Years of Land Use and Water Quality This project will study the relation - Julie Dawson ships between land use and water Washington State University quality over the past century, focusing on the effects of croplands that occu - Comparing Nitrogen Use Efficiency py 22 percent of the contiguous United States and domi - in Wheat nate water quality problems. The study will identify con - Nitrogen use efficiency is an impor - centrations of these pollution sources and measure shifts tant trait in breeding crops. Plants that over the years. Results will help clarify the ecological use nitrogen more efficiently need links between agriculture and water quality, and help less fertilizer. In addition to costing develop natural systems agriculture. farmers less, this can improve soil and water quality. Perennial grains’ deep, thick roots and longer photosynthesis might contribute to efficient nitro - gen use, but the nitrogen dynamics of perennials are not well understood. I will compare the efficiency of peren - nial wheat with different annual , and with mix - tures of perennial and annual wheats. The results will be used to develop efficient perennial grains.

The Land Report 19 The clown dancer pulls a roar of laughter from the Native Americans. As always, laughs signal something serious and worth studying .

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Powwow

Roger L. Welsch

I never miss the annual Omaha tribal powwow, always from the contest if he or she dances one step after the held the weekend before the August full moon. I use the final note of the song. The clown dancer dances not just occasion to stuff myself with fry bread and corn soup, one step after the last beat of the song, but four, five, ten talk with friends and relatives, catch up on tribal news, steps. He is lost in the music in his own head and preoc - listen to good music, and watch stirring dances. cupied with checking the time on a large alarm clock in Although I am by training a folklorist and anthropolo - his hand. gist, at powwow time I try to avoid anything that smacks Between dances he talks loudly with others, even of professional observation. This is time off, and any - while tribal elders are addressing the crowd, a violation way, it would be a breach of the confidence of my of tribal courtesy. Even worse, he throws his arms Omaha friends to “observe” them. But it’s hard to be in around the shoulders of visitors and tribal members, a Native American setting and stay stupid. Some things even women, a dreadful breach of ethics in a community are too hard to ignore. where a woman trying to get through a clogged aisle My favorite—and most uncomfortable—moments will leave and find a male relative to tap the shoulder of are when a clown dancer appears in the powwow arena. the man obstructing her passage rather than touch him It doesn’t happen every year. You never know when this herself. fellow is going to show up, which probably says some - There is no convention or courtesy the clown dancer thing about him right off the bat. But when he does does not ignore, no taboo he doesn’t breach. He finds show up, a roar of continuous laughter goes up from all ways of offending others and embarrassing himself that the Native Americans. As always, laughter signals some - you ’d have to go out of your way to think up. He does thing serious, worth paying attention to. nothing right. Nothing. The clown dancer bursts on the scene, usually stum - There is no confusing the clown dancer with fancy bling into the dance arena not through the traditional, dancers, jingle dancers or traditional dancers in the prescribed opening to the east but from among the arena. He is dressed in an ancient, oversize, double- dancers and viewers seated around the arena. Chaos breasted suit, clearly purchased at a Goodwill or reigns as he stumbles over benches, audience members, Salvation Army clothing store or rescued from the back lawn chairs, and dancers on his way into the arena. of some closet. He is wearing a garish necktie, oxford His dance is, er, distinctive. His sense of rhythm is shoes, and a homburg. A white linen flour sack pulled horrid, but even worse, he dances counterclockwise over his head hides his face, and on the sack are painted around the central drum, directly against the flow of all bright blue eyes and red lips, a startling contrast with the the other dancers. This is not only disruptive and clum - dark skins of the dancers around him. (I use the male sy, it is unheard of: besides being bad manners, it is con - pronoun, but in keeping with his hopeless perversity, sidered very bad luck for everyone in attendance. this “man” is often, I have learned, a woman.) Among the Omaha it is very important that every - In his hand, instead of a staff or dance ax or feather thing end with the last beat of a song. I sat at the Omaha fan, the clown dancer carries the alarm clock, attached drum for many years learning songs, but finally gave up to his waist or vest with a stout rope or chain. As he not only because the repertoire was clearly beyond my “dances,” he refers again and again to his clock, mean - abilities but also because I be-came a nervous wreck while colliding with other dancers, bumping singers at from the fear of striking the drum one beat after the the drum, and stepping on the feet of visitors and final thump, a humiliation for which my German dancers seated around the arena. upbringing had not equipped me. In competition, an The message is clear—except maybe to some Omaha dancer, no matter how skillful, is eliminated European American visitors: The clown dancer is the

The Land Report 20 white man. This is me and my people as Native American “anthropologists ” see us. They are good at it because they have so many opportunities to see the Tasting the Dust white man at work and play. I have to travel 175 miles to visit my Omaha friends and relatives. I am on the reser - Jean Janzen vation a few times a year, a day or two at a time. I wit - ness and learn Omaha ways, but the process is slow and incomplete. The way he brings it in, Omahas live constantly in contact with the white leaves falling from his hair, man ’s world. They can ’t escape it for long, even when then kisses me, you would think they want to. They see mainstream American culture every day, every hour. They know it well enough to offer that gardening is pleasure, up a good imitation of it. which he says it is, digging deep At community festivals—regional, ethnic, historical, to kill bermuda roots, piercing whatever—people project an image of themselves as they wish to be seen, as they for the moment see them- his hands on roses. selves. Occasionally, as in the Omaha clown dancer, Sweat drips into my eyes they also capture others as they see them, providing per - from his forehead, physician haps the ultimate lesson gained in anthropology—a chance for the observer to be the observed. In a valley curing himself with soil. of the Omaha reservation near the Missouri River north Sometimes I join him, raking of the city of Omaha, far away from my own home, I the pages of leaves, but the garden learn not nearly as much about the Omahas as I learn about myself. is his, the place which gathers struggles from his hands and returns its own—

the story of dust, an origin so deep and dense, it rose like fire to make the mountain,

a narrative of tumble and breakage from its sides, the wet roar of ages

under the slow beat of the sun. The mountain offering itself in mud, sticks and stones

for his spade, his touch, to make of it a shape and fragrance, to taste the center of this earth.

The Land Report 21 Biting the Land That Feeds Us Jim Scharplaz

I am a rancher. I live on the land I grew Many nonfarmers are as concerned up on, in the house my father built for us. as anyone else about this situation. And For over 25 years, I have tended descen - now that 98 percent of Americans don’t dants of the same cows my parents farm, the decisions these nonfarmers bought when they married 64 years ago. make about what to buy, what kind of I am also a licensed professional work to do, what to value, and what engineer. I hold an advanced degree in kind of public policy choices are made, agricultural engineering. I have done uni - are more important than the decisions versity agricultural research, and I have farmers can make about how to farm. designed and built specialized machinery I realize the farm program can be to farm research plots. very confusing to nonfarmers. In fact, it is I think I have a pretty wide view of often very confusing to farmers. But non - agriculture. farmers must become far more involved in shaping farm What I see are wonderful people doing their best policy, if for no other reason than that their taxes pay for to care for creation and produce healthful food. And I it. For their money, they should get a program that see practices that pollute the soil, water and air, and encourages production of the kind of food they want to destroy our long-term ability to feed ourselves. eat, grown in a way that assures that generations to It’s easy to blame lazy, greedy farmers for come can eat as well. destructive farming. But I believe that our federal Specifically, they should demand more money for farm program is largely responsible. The main objec - the underfunded Conservation Security Program, which tive of this program is cheap food and raw material rewards farmers for good conservation practices, not the for industry. It forces farmers to cut corners with our volume of crops they grow. soil and water, to use practices that harm the land on Furthermore, nonfarmers should demand rewards which agriculture depends. and regulations that encourage farmers to switch to As our food source suffers, so eventually do we organic methods, which shun synthetic and all. pesticides. Lobbyists for agricultural chemical compa - For about 15 years, I have worked in efforts to nies have major influence over farm legislation, while change the things in agriculture that, if not stopped, the organic industry is much weaker. Nonfarmers must will lead to hunger in the future. Others have worked weigh in on the side of organic farming. They can start far longer and harder than I have. by insisting that the Agriculture Department defend its Have things changed? Certainly. They have gotten new organic rules against those who would loosen them. worse. Farmers and ranchers are a small minority of our According to the Oakland-based group Redefining population. We no longer have the political muscle to Progress, Americans are running down the earth’s bio - shape a farm program that will keep us on the land, top - logical capital at a rate five times what can be sus - soil out of the river, and food on your plate. Whether our tained. More fertilizer has polluted the rivers, more top - grandchildren will eat is up to nonfarmers. soil has washed away to the ocean, and more pesticides have polluted the groundwater. Noxious odors and dust With the Prairie Writers Circle, The Land Institute have fouled the air. Bioengineered “Frankenfoods” have invites and distributes essays to about 250 newspapers infiltrated the supermarket and corrupted the gene pool. and a dozen web services. All essays are at Multinational corporations have commandeered the www.landinstitute.org, and free to use. marketplace. And many more of those wonderful peo - ple have had to leave their farms forever. That’s not to say that efforts have been wasted in promoting an agriculture that can furnish abundant food and also protect our soil and water. The situation would be far worse without this work. But I no longer believe that farmers alone can change agriculture for the better.

The Land Report 22 Rural War

The war in Iraq is killing rural Americans at a markedly counties had lost 576 people in the war, the big counties higher rate than those from big cities and metropolitan 350. Counties with fewer than 50,000 residents and dis - areas. connected from metro areas had a death rate nearly dou - Robert Cushing, a retired University of Texas sociol - ble that of counties the same size but part of larger met - ogist, and Bill Bishop, a reporter for The Austin ropolitan areas. American-Statesman , hypothesized that fewer job and Bishop and Cushing wrote in an op-ed for The New education chances in small places distant from metro York Times that monuments to soldiers sacrificed in this areas lead more rural residents to enlist in the military. war will be found less often in thriving urban centers They noted that military studies consistently find that a than in lagging rural communities. poor economy boosts recruiting success. For more on the study, write to Bishop at The researchers used data from the 2000 census, [email protected] or 1415 Alameda Drive, Austin, and from the Defense Department for deaths through TX 78704. August 8. They found that nearly equal numbers of Defense Department data are at Americans ages 18-54 live in counties of more than 1 http://web1.whs.osd.mil/mmid/casualty/castop.htm. million and counties of less than 100,000. But the small

D2eath Rate by County Population Size The left column is a gauge for deaths per 100,000. Bottom numbers are county size. The ages considered were 18-54, the range of almost all U.S. fatalities in the Iraq war.

2.0

1.5

1.0

0.5

0.0 More than 500,00 to 250,000 to 100,000 to 50,000 to 25,000 to Less than 1 million 1 million 500,000 250,000 100,000 50,000 25,000

The Land Report 23 At the Land

Graduate Fellows from the air could be lessened with less burning of fos - The graduate students whose research we help fund met sil fuel to make farm chemicals. A path to reach all of in June for their annual weeklong workshop in Salina these goals is replacing annual crop plants with perenni - and our schoolhouse in Matfield Green, a small town in als, The Land Institute’s aim. But even under the best the Kansas Flint Hills. There they heard speakers from circumstance, fields storing carbon will play a minimal around the country on topics related to our work. part in avoiding climate change wrought by industrial Angus Wright urged the students to careers of rigor - living. ous professionalism, following truth in the face of politi - Gene Turner told how 200 years of tillage has sent cal pressure. Wright, a Land Institute board member and nutrients from North America’s landscapes to contami - just retired from teaching environmental studies at nate the seas around river mouths and drive away most California State University in Sacramento, wrote The life. He and his wife, Nancy Rabalais, are researchers at Death of Ramon Gonzalez: The Modern Agricultural Louisiana State University and have been key in under - Dilemma to expose damage done to the people and land standing how farming in the upper Midwest can make a of Mexico by pesticides on vegetable crops. He also has dead zone where the Mississippi dumps into the Gulf of covered the movement by poor Brazilians for land Mexico. This area and others have swollen in the past reform under threat of assassination. Wright told the stu - few decades with the dramatic increase in use of syn - dents that many would go on to teach not at prestigious thetic fertilizer. The problem is not just from runoff car - schools, but at state and community colleges—and that rying the fertilizers, but because the fertilizers have they should recognize how this can be a blessing, with allowed growing of annual crops on land previously less pressure to publish at the cost of research, along considered unworthy. This releases to leaching vast with administrators more grateful for what is published, amounts of nitrogen once held in check for cycling by and with more freedom. Students gave Wright a stand - perennial vegetation. ing ovation. Professor John Reganold and graduate student fel - Dennis Dimick, associate editor of National low Matthew Arterburn described agroecology studies Geographic, told how the magazine takes on the diffi - and breeding of perennial grain crops at Washington culty of telling complex, controversial stories to a wide State University. They presented this as case study of a audience. He said the editors are cautious to be objec - university and The Land Institute as complements. The tive, going to the source rather than relying on others’ institute has inspired the school in work on perennial reportage, and not hamstringing the story with supposed grains. The school has added breadth to our effort with fairness when there is a scientific consensus on some - its resources and by being in a different region of the thing like humans fueling global climate change—evi - country. Washington State is increasingly known for its dence trumps controversy. Dimick said the importance program. It is the first school to of environmental challenges has led editors to make offer a degree in organic agriculture. them central to many recent articles. Sasha Kramer told about the Millennium Ecosystem Eric Sacks told of breeding perennial rice in the Assessment, a United Nations-sponsored report that Philippines. Sacks and his co-workers at the found two-thirds of what ecosystems give us—water and International Rice Research Institute crossed upland food, control of pests and pathogens, renewal of fertile annual rice varieties, grown by subsistence farmers on soil, control of floods, and more—are being degraded. poorer soil, with wild relatives, and got hybrids that Kramer is a former fellow at Stanford University study - could produce the underground stems of a perennial ing greenhouse gas emissions and nutrient retention in plant and the grain yields of a crop plant. The results agriculture. now are being worked on by Chinese scientists. We are Peter Simonson, who teaches rhetoric at the communicating with them. University of Pittsburgh, critiqued the workshop for us William Schlesinger talked about how agriculture last year and returned for refining this year. He also told cycles carbon, and how it might take more carbon diox - the students about how scientists can communicate well ide, the primary greenhouse gas, from the atmosphere with both scientists and lay people by addressing the and store it in soil. Schlesinger, a Duke University bio - five classic canons of rhetoric—invention, arrangement, chemist and a member of the National Academy of style, memory and delivery; with thinking about audi - Sciences, said one key to is to ence, occasion and purpose; and by recognizing that avoid soil disturbance, which releases it to the air. rhetoric is an art guided by principles that can be Another is plants that are better at pumping carbon defined and learned—that being bad at public speaking below ground. And the amount of carbon to remove is not insurmountable.

The Land Report 24 Pete Ferrell led a tour of his 10,000-acre cattle ranch Presentations Scheduled south of Matfield Green, and told how he has worked September 8, Springfield, Missouri for both production and sustainability by moving herds September 20-27, Adelaide Australia to control when and how much they eat of a place. September 23-25, Prairie Festival, Salina, Kansas Ferrell is a Land Institute board member. His ranch is in September 29, Crested Butte/Gunnison, Colorado the Flint Hills, the largest preservation of tallgrass October 19, Wichita, Kansas prairie in the United States, and at once one of Kansas’ November 8, Topeka, Kansas most vulnerable landscapes and least degraded, because November 6-10, Salt Lake City the thin topsoil could not take the plow and annual crop - ping that the institute seeks to replace. For details, call us or see Calendar at We now have 20 active fellows and 40 former fel - www.landinsitute.org. lows in this 7-year-old program. Their growing number challenges good communication among us all. So we Prairie Writers Circle invited former fellows to meet current fellows at the We send op-ed essays to newspapers around the country. workshop. A quarter of former fellows attended, at their Recent topics: depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer, human own expense. From this gathering we hope to make a shortsightedness, drug companies polluting India, politi - well-connected, self-reinforcing network that will influ - cal reform in Kansas, bulldozing landscapes, populism, ence university research agendas and perhaps policy for trees and power lines, the unsustainability of oil produc - decades to come. tion, learning from the new West, and the danger of syn - For short descriptions of our fellows program and thetic herbicides. the new fellows’ work with us, see page 18. Contributor Jim Scharplaz’s essay “Weeding Out the Skilled Farmer” is in the college textbook Presentations Made Subjects/Strategies: A Writer’s Reader . For Scharplaz’s Forty people attended the Memorial Day weekend Short latest, on how saving farmland takes nonfarmers, see Course, the largest group to take this introduction to our page 22. work. The students are of varied ages and backgrounds. All of the essays are at www.landinstitute.org under Many think about becoming researchers in fields that Publications. They are free for use with credit to the might fit our graduate student fellowships. Prairie Writers Circle and The Land Institute. Institute staff members spoke at a lecture at the University of Manitoba, for a wheat conference in Bowling Green, Kentucky, at an Earth Day seminar in Colorado Springs, Colorado, at meetings of the Center for Humans and Nature in Baraboo, Wisconsin, and Libertyville, Illinois, for the conservationist group Green Lands, Blue Waters in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and at the Iowa Prairie Conference in Cedar Rapids, among other places. We also had many visits from high school and col - lege students, and other groups large and small.

Tours We would enjoy meeting you, telling our story and hear - ing yours. Please call or write ahead. We give guided tours only with advance arrangement, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays. Walking around without a guide may be pleasant, but it will leave you with more questions than answers. We are about 8 miles from Interstate 70 and 3 miles from Interstate 135, so it is easy for people pass - ing through Kansas to stop in. See more on our Web site at “Visit, ” or call us at 785-823-5376.

The Land Report 25 Prairie Festival, September 23-25

Bill McKibben , author The End of Registration Nature, the first book on climate change for a general audience, and Enough: Saturday Staying Human in an Engineered Age . Friends of the Land ...... ______x $12 = ______Others ...... ______x $16 = ______Sunday Sue Halpern , author of books including Migrations to Solitude, about Friends of the Land ...... ______x $ 6 = ______people living solitary lives, and Four Others ...... ______x $ 8 = ______Wings and a Prayer: Caught in the Student rate, $10 for weekend, Mystery of the Monarch Butterfly. not including dinner ...... ______x $10 = ______Attending: I Saturday I Sunday Children under 12 attend free ...... ______x $0 = ______Craig Holdrege , biologist and author of Genetics and the Dinner Saturday evening, Manipulation of Life: The Forgotten paid by September 16…... ______x $12.50 = ______Factor of Context. He directs the The Vegetarian (not vegan) meal? I Yes I No Nature Institute in upstate New York. Enroll as Friend of the Land, one year, tax-deductible, $35 minimum. (You are already a Friend of The Land if you have Carl McDaniel , author of Wisdom for a Livable Planet, which profiles given since September 30, 2004.) ...... $ ______activists for sustainability, and Paradise Additional tax-deductible contribution ...... $ ______for Sale, on change to a Pacific island from mining fertilizer. Total enclosed $ ______

I Visa I MasterCard I Discover Exp. _____/_____ Strachan Donnelley , president of the Center for Humans and Nature, No. ______writer of articles on conservationist Aldo Leopold, biologist Ernst Mayr and Signature ______philosopher Albert North Whitehead. To register by phone, call 785-823-5376 weekdays. Names of those attending: ______Wes Jackson , Land Institute presi - dent and author of books including New ______Roots for Agriculture and Becoming ______Native to This Place, for connection and Street ______devotion to locale. City ______State ______Zip ______David Kline , Ohio farmer, editor of Farming Magazine , and author of Great Possessions: An Amish Phone ______Farmer’s Journal and Scratching the Woodchuck: E-mail ______Nature on an Amish Farm. We will not confirm your reservation. Programs, Plus nametags and meal tickets will be at the registration desk. No refunds. I Barn dance. I Singer-songwriter Anne Zimmerman. I Send map. I Food by chef Donna Prizgintas. I Free camping. The Land Institute 2440 E. Water Well Road, Salina, KS 67401 For more, including a schedule, see Phone 785-823-5376, fax 785-823-8728 www.landinstitute.org.

The Land Report 26 Thanks to our contributors February through July 2005

Thousands of tax-deductible gifts, from a few to thou - as we work together toward greater ecological sustain - sands of dollars, are received each year from individuals ability. Thank you to you, our perennial friends. and private organizations to make our work possible. The first section of contributors below lists Friends Our other source of revenue is earned income from of The Land who have pledged periodic gifts. Most have interest and event fees, recently about 6 percent of total. arranged for us to deduct their gifts monthly from their Large and small gifts in aggregate make a difference. bank account or credit card. They increase our financial They also represent a constituency and help spread ideas stability, a trait valuable to any organization.

Pledges John B. Gilpin Bart P. Miller and Lisa Seaman Ann E. Wegner Nils R. Gore and Shannon R. Criss Robin E. Mittenthal Darrell G. and Lois I. Wells A H Suzanne Meyer Mittenthal Jo M. and Stephen R. Whited Clifford P. and Rebecca K.R. Ambers David Haskell Bonny A. Moellenbrock and Michael Dan and Dayna L. Williams-Capone Angela A. Anderson James F. Henson I. Lowry Charles Windham Alan G. Arnold Craig A. Hepworth John H. Morrill Keith V. and Kathleen M. Wold Jennifer R. Atlee Bette J. Hileman Philip C. and Lona Morse Parker Worley Patricia A. and Tim C. Ault-Duell Frederick T. Hill III N David Wristen B David L. Hodges and Elizabeth Charles Nabors Y William C. and Terry B. Baldwin Knight Karen Owsley Nease Debra Brown Young William Beard II John J. and Gloria J. Hood William D. and Dorothy M. Nelligan John and Jane Young Cheri Black Mark L. and Linda K. Howard Stanley R. and Ann L. Nelson Z Charles R. Boardman III and Dianne John W. Howell J. Clyde and Martha Nichols David H. Zimmermann and Emily E. Boardman Gary R. and Michele Howland Richard B. and Elizabeth B. Norton Marriott Lloyd D. Brace Jr. Andrew Hyde Hryniewicz O Dr. Dennis M. and Jean C. Bramble Liz Huffman Richard and Christine Ouren Individual Gifts Sheryl D. Breen I P D. Gordon Brown and Charlene K. Dana J. Inloes Harold D. and Dorothy M. Parman A Irvin-Brown J Steven Paulding Raoul W. Adamchak Professor E. Charles Brummer Nancy and Scott Jackson C. Diane Percival Jim Allen and Judy Cumbee C Nancy A. Jackson Joan Peterkin Professor Jonathan G. Andelson Janeine Cardin and David Ritter Wes and Joan Jackson Robert L. and Karen N. Pinkall Milton L. Andersen Jim and Carressa Carlstedt Dorcie McKniff Jasperse Q Gerald H. and Joanne P. Anderson Merry P. Carlstedt Max D. and Helen F. Johnston Jerry L. Quance and Marcia A. Hall Thomas M. and Barbara G. James P. and Marianne G. Cassidy Jimmy R. Jones R Armstrong Suzanne Casson Todd Juengling Charles P. and Marcia Lautanen Margaret J. and Stephen I. Arnold Lorna W. and D. Douglas Caulkins K Raleigh Albion Avery James Cooke Robert G. and Judith Kelly Thomas L. Rauch and Joyce Carl Awsumb Richard E. and Anne E. Courter Bruce Kendall Borgerding B Dianne M. and Gerard Cox Skyview Laboratory Inc. David C. and Jane S. Richardson Marian J. Bakken Kenneth L. Cramer Constance E. Kimos James H. Rose Jeri D. Baldwin Edith A. Cresmer Leslie Kitchens David Rosenthal Ruth D. Basney David S. and Kim Criswell Raymond C. and Marianne D. Wolfgang D. Rougle Mark M. and Anne F. Bauman D Kluever S Eugene J. Bazan Shawn and Jamie Dehner Keith W. Krieger Claire Lynn Schosser David E. and Nancy Bedan B. Marion and Joan Den Hartog L Peter C. and Helen A. Schulze John L. Bengfort, M.D. Al DeSena, Ph.D. and Mary H. David R. Leitch Suzanne Jean Shafer Robert R. Bergstrom DeSena Janice E. Lilly and Cary A. Buzzelli William R. and Cynthia D. Sheldon Dale L. Berry Dennis R. Dimick Robert M. Lindholm James R. and Katherine V. Smith Chris Bieker and Mary Griffin Fred and Arlene Dolgon Jonne A. Long Lea Smith Adrienne Birt Barbara T. Dregallo Kenneth C. and Sherri A. Louis Robert and Clara Steffen Henry D. and Mary G. Blocher Nathanael P. and Marnie Dresser M George C. and M. Rosannah Stone DeVere E. Blomberg Blythe Dyson and Hannah F. Arps Michelle C. Mack and Edward Ted Bianca Storlazzi Ross and Lorena Blount E Schuur Persis B. Suddeth Amy A. Blumenshine and Michael L. Jean A. Emmons Grant W. Mallett and Nancy Tilson- Toby Symington Troutman James P. Erickson Mallett T Egon and Diana Bodtker Arlen and Lana S. Etling James R. and Nanette M. Manhart Gene Steven and Patricia A. Thomas Patrick J. Bohlen and Julie Mitchell Claryce Lee Evans Andrew F. Marks and Tamara Margaret Thomas and Tom Brown Lindsey K. Brandt Terry and Sam Evans Zagorec-Marks David P. Thompson and Meg Edward J. Braun and Jean B. Krusi F Hugh and Joanne Marsh Eastman Lois C. Braun Eric Farnsworth David E. Martin Ruth Anna Thurston Robert S. Brown, M.D. Douglass T. Fell Helen O. Martin David Toner Amadea Bruen-Morningstar and Rebecca V. Ferrell and Michael J. The Mason Family Trust U Gordon Bruen Golec Peter Mason and Paula Wenzl Virginia L. Usher Brian Buchner Andy and Betsy Finfrock Thomas R. and Nina L. Mastick V Peter K. and Mimi Buckley Dana K. Foster William A. and Julia Fabris McBride Valerie M. and Roger R. Vetter Carl G. Buhse John K. Franson Mildred N. McClellan W Janet D. Bunbury G R. Michael and Debra L. Medley John and Bette Sue Wachholz William Burckle Jane A. Gauss Sara Michl Kenneth G. and Dorothy L. Weaber C Jared N. and Cindi M. Gellert Howard Walter Mielke Robert B. and Judith S. Weeden Laura W. and Michael N. Calwell

The Land Report 27 Jack L. and Martha A. Carter Eileen Duggan John M. and Robin McClure Chris N. Hoffman III Michel A. Cavigelli and Martha Dr. Donald N. and Selma N. Duvick Greenler and Susan L. Coffin Joyce M. Hofman Tomecek E T. McLean and Hope Wiswall Griffin Mark D. Hollingsworth Hal S. and Avril L. Chase Robert L. and Marilyn Sue Eichhorn Jonathan F. and Lois A. Grothe Shae S. Hoschek Christopher Childs and Elizabeth Howard Eisenberg Duane Guinau Charles F. Howe Anne Dickinson Dr. and Mrs. Paul G. Epler Pete A. Y. and Elizabeth E. Gunter Dean and Nicki Jo Hulse Michael R. Clow Mark Ezell H I Jean and John B. Cobb F Michael Habeck Robert D. Inderman and Patty Moore David C. and Frances E. Coleman Christian G. Fellner and Melissa S. Sharon Hale J John and Sage F. Cowles Payne Margie Haley Noah and Johanna Ruth Jansen Nancy M. Craig Rafael Andres Ferreyra and Liliana Deborah E. Hall James L. Janzen and Carol Knieriem William J. Craven and Teresa L. Tork Ferreyra Ferrer Duane K. Harms Lawrence and Mildred Jensen Robert A. and Lavina Creighton Jeffrey M. Filipiak Patricia C. Harryman-Buschbom Alice L. Jones Timothy and Sarah Crews Margaret M. and William J. Fischang Richard C. Haskell and Nancy V. K D Laurie and Don Fisher Hamlett Suparna B. and Sameer M. Kadam Dr. William D. and Kristine B. Davis Jeffrey A. and Mary S. Fleming Lois F. and Charles M. Hayes Dr. Patrick C. Kangas Anthony T. and Lawrie C. Dean Jan L. and Cornelia Flora Norvin J. and Jeanne H. Hein Michael G. Karl, Ph.D., and Shawna Robert Debellis Jane David Fopeano Amy Berkley and Phil Hemmer Lea Karl Sabino L. and Janice C. DeGisi Barbara J. Francisco Dr. Lamont C. and Marilyn Scaff Michael and Violet Kasper Dennis and Ruth Demmel Phillip E. Fry and Peggy Miles Hempel Roger A. and Cara M. Keller Gerald R. Depew and Dorothy G Eric W. and Mary Herminghausen James C. and Virginia S. Kenney Lamberti John W. and Judith M. Gallman Michael T. Hernke John A. and Martha Jane Kenyon Susan L. Detweiler Elisabeth Gibans Carl V. Herrgesell Kenneth J. and Sue K. Kerchenfaut M. Cassandra Dickson and Professor Frank B. and Priscilla M. Amy M. Hiatt Lincoln Kern Christopher D. Larson Golley William E. Hine Jr. Donald R. Kerstetter Jeffrey and Jessie R. Doan Jenna B. and David E. Goodling Irma Lou and William A. Hirsch Kelly Kindscher Esther M. Donahue LeRoy J. and Ruth M. Goodrick Melissa J. Hochstetler Nance Klehm Strachan Donnelley Family Trust Anna Noel Graether Dr. Stanton F. and Carol Hoegerman Don Kluever

Prairie Festival Tapes October 1-3, 2004, The Land Institute

Orders are by air mail and guaranteed for delivery in 60 I S1 Election Year 2052: A Secretary of Agriculture days. Payment methods: checks and money orders for Runs for President — Wes Jackson U.S. funds, and MasterCard, Visa and Discover. Card I S2 The High Cost of Cheap Food — purchases can be by fax or phone. Mail orders to: I S3 Corporations vs. Farmers: Whose Plants Are These, Anyway? — Percy Schmeiser I S4 Building an Alternative to Corporate Globalization — Judy Wicks 10332 Lefthand Canyon Drive, Jamestown, CO 80455 Phone: 303-444-3158 Fax: 303-444-7077 I SU1 The Long Arm of the Land — Land Institute graduate research fellows I SU2 Where in the World We Are Going? — William Name ______MacLeish Address ______I SU3 An Ignorance-based Worldview — Wes Jackson State______ZIP code ______Total individual tapes ______x $8 = ______Phone ______Complete set of tapes _____ x $50 = ______I MasterCard I Visa I Discover Subtotal ______Card No. ______For shipping within the U.S., $2 for first tape, Expiration date ______50 cents for each extra, $18 maximum; for Canada and Mexico, double shipping fee; for overseas, triple shipping fee ______Colorado sales tax: add 4.25% ______Signature ______Total ______

The Land Report 28 Kris W. Knight Steven Wernicki Gigia L. and Victor G. Kolouch Howard B. and Dorothy Westley James H. Koplin Memorials Honorary Gifts Warren and Geneva Weston Dr. Douglas A. and Patricia A. Katie White Grace Avery Eric Marsh Kramer Sandra and Dave Whitmore Albion Avery Kris Knight Zachary Kramer David B. and Nancy H. Wilson Charles J. Hale Reid Nelson Kathleen Krehbiel-Boutis and Nikos Charlotte P. and Robert W. Wolfe Sharon Hale Stan and Ann Nelson Boutis Y Avenell R. Harms Ludmila Pachepsky Nelda B. Kubat George and Margaret Yarnevich Duane K. Harms Andres Ferreyra Wendell D. and Judith A. Kurr Z Mark and Katie McManus Basil Savage L Dr. Dewey K. Ziegler Richard P. and Marjorie T. John L. Bengfort Mark and Robin Lacey John L. and Patsy Zimmerman McManus Emma Steen Milan W. Lambertson Carolyn Meyer Michael Steen Michael T. and Jane Landers Organization Gifts Bill and Carol Walker John Wachholz J. Han and Eva Marie Lankhorst Beatrix A. Rose Faculty and staff of Salina Terrence W. Larrimer Bennington State Bank James H. Rose Central High School George W. Lawrence Chez Panisse Foundation Allison Wilson Winfred M. Leaf Clubine & Rettele, Chartered Nancy Wilson LeFort-Martin Fund of Chicago The Charles DeVlieg Foundation Community Foundation Ecological Architecture Dan Lesh The Esperance Family Foundation Marie Lies Inc. Edwin D. and Susanne M. Lindgren John Niernberger Matt Sheaffer Fanwood Foundation/West Mark S. Lindquist and Kristine Noel A. and Ida M. Nieto Florence R. Shepard Flora Family Foundation Schlangen-Lindquist Sherrill Nilson Elizabeth S. Sidamon-Eristoff Hackett Timber & Livestock Robert and Janet London William J. and Shirley A. Nolting Boyd E. and Heather M. Smith Hedge Haven Farm Bernard E. and Diana C. Long James C. Nore and Jill D. Harold V. Smith Howse Arizona Properties Inc. Robert E. Lucore and Nora Carroll Schluckebier Marjorie Whitall Smith Hunnewell Elevator Inc. M Frank C. and Jeanne Norton John David Soltman and Judy A. Roy A. Hunt Foundation Tod J. Maclay O Howard The Hunter-White Foundation Susanne L. and Walter J. Maier Hortense Casady Oldfather Claire and Joseph M. Spampinato Kansas Health Foundation Alan P. Mamoser Shoshana B. Osofsky James Spanier and Julia P. Horner J. M. Kaplan Fund Inc. George R. and Marjorie J. Manglitz P Anita Specht Kinnickinnic Realty Co. Clay H. and Kimberly S. Marcusen Robert I. Papendick James Gustave Speth Fund for the Limbo Inc. Richard Marold David and Nurya Love Parish Environment Henry Luce Foundation Ivy Marsh Patrick P. and Chardell Parke Susie Stacy McBride Family & Aspen Business Robert B. and Nancy Lehenbauer Donald G. Parker Marshall P. and Janice M. Stanton Center Foundation Marshall Karl E. and Elizabeth R. Parker Pamela C. Stearns Prairieland Food Cooperative and Ms. A. Charlene B. Martin Dr. Kelly A. and Sandy Parker Michael H. Steen Market Howard R. and Jennifer K. Martin Jack Parr Cletus G. Stein Radiant Sun Massage Tony and Patsy Martin Ketel Paulsen Steve Stodola R. Rubin Family Foundation Inc. Frank and Martha Mason Ellen Pearson Stephen L. Stover Salina Central High School Robert M. and Janet Mayers Dale Perkins Muriel Strand The Scheerer Family Foundation Karin A. McAdams Julien Yannick Perrette Gail E. Stratton Adler Schermer Foundation Richard S. McAnany II John E. and Merle L. Peterson Charlotte M. and John G. Strecker- Southwest Medical Associates Inc Marion McConnell Daniel W. Pettengill Baseler St. Joseph Foundation Lane and Janet M. McDonald Allen and Charlotte Pinkall Oliver A. and Eunice A. Stromberg Treehouse Woodworks Richard P. and Marjorie T. McManus E. Wynn and Andrea Presson Steven Stucky USDA Sustainable Dev/Envt Educ Victoria M. McMillan Robert T. and Ruby N. Priddy Fund Liatris P. Studer Wallace Genetic Foundation Inc. Dorothy F. McNeil of Communities Foundation of Paula Suda Michael and Laurel McNeil Texas David K. and Shelli A. Swanson Donors of Time and Goods Mr. and Mrs. Sidney McVey R T David B. and Susan Kay Mengel Steven D. and Pamela Read George H. Taylor and S. Candice Paul Cox Ronald Meyer Don T. and Barbara Reeves Hoke Wes Jackson Amy E. Miller and Michael Natvig Mr. and Mrs. Paul W. Renich Alan R. and Bonnie A. Templeton Ritter Tile Shop Keith B. and Ruth Douglas Miller Stephen E. Renich and Cheryl L. Robert B. and Nelda R. Thelin Jim Trepoy Mark L. and Julie Miller Umphrey Robert Ernest Thompson Vanguard-Piping Systems Inc. David V. and Florence Minar Andrew H. Rhodes Charles J. Transue Kristin and David Van Tassel Gael Rockwell and Ty Minton Deborah Rich U Tim Crews Grover C. Mitchell and Harriet G. Kenneth C. Rich Robert L. Untiedt Taryn Kennedy Hodges Roger M. Richter V Matthew Arterburn Joanna M. Mitchell and Stephen C. Wilma W. and Richard L. Righter John H. and Sally B. Van Schaick Dennis Dimick Mitchell, M.D. Scott M. and Teresa M. Robeson Gary A. and Madelyn P. Verhaeghe Pete Ferrell Judith A. Mohling Bernard N. and Marcialyn W Sasha Kramer James B. Moore Robinowitz A. Paul and Mary Wagoner John Reganold David M. and Susan Yarrow Morris Barbara C. Robison David E. Wagoner and Arwen Eric Sacks Richard B. and Anne B. Morris Karen Rossner Donahue William Schlesinger Barbara L. Mueller William R. and Jane Roy Carol N. and William E. Walker Peter Simonson Jon R. and Teri Jill Mullen S Pamela Jo Walker and Walter Gene Turner N Sanders-McClure Family Fund Whitfield Isle Angus Wright Hiromichi Nagashima Kathleen Sayce and Frank Wolfe Richard F. and Susan M. Walton Ann Zimmerman Arthur K. and Connie S. Neuburger John L. and Betty T. Schmidt Thomas J. Warner Herbert and Pamela Neumann Darren C. Seirer Arnold Weir Edward Newman and Martha Bishop Gerald L. and Jean L. Selzer James M. Wellman Jean G. Nicholas Michael and Janet W. Shay Wiley D. and De Vera S. Wenger

The Land Report 29 Winesap from barn. From John Szarkowski: Photographs . The Writers and Photographer

Bill Vitek is associate professor of philosophy at Jake Doll worked as a research assistant at The Land Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York, and co-edi - Institute this winter. He taught biology for the Peace tor, with Wes Jackson, of Rooted in the Land: Essays on Corps in Mozambique for two years, and has begun Community and Place. He can be reached at medical school at Columbia University. [email protected]. Folklorist Roger L. Welsch lives on a tree farm in Wes Jackson is president of The Land Institute. His Dannebrog, Nebraska. His books include A Life With books include New Roots for Agriculture and Becoming Dogs and Everything I Know About Women I Learned Native to This Place . From my Tractor. John Szarkowski was director of photography at the Jean Janzen, of Fresno, California, travels to give Museum of Modern Art in New York for almost 30 poetry readings and workshops. Collections of her poet - years. Books of his photographs include The Idea of ry include Piano in the Vineyard and Tasting the Dust . A Louis Sullivan and The Face of Minnesota . book of essays is Elements of Faithful Writing . William H. MacLeish wrote The Day Before Jim Scharplaz raises cattle in Ottawa County, America: Changing the Nature of the Continent and The Kansas, and serves on the board of the Kansas Rural Gulf Stream: Encounters with the Blue God. Center.

The Land Report 30 A Gentle Nudge

Most of us can use a nudge now and then to act on something we intend to do—such as writing or updating a will. If this describes you, consider this a nudge. Most of us have seen the difficulties that arise when a person dies without a will. People who intend to include The Land Institute and others as beneficiaries know they will not get their wish unless each bequest has been clearly stated in a valid will. The resulting peace of mind is a good result for you. It is ideal to complete so important a matter under no pressure, to be able to consider the options carefully and make sound decisions. For simple information to provide your attorney to include The Land Institute in your will, please call Joan Jackson at 785-823-5376. One more nudge—please do it soon. We would be pleased, too, to know if you have already named The Land Institute in your will. With permission, we would like to note such generosity in our Land Report acknowledgments.

I Want to Be a Perennial Friend of the Land Here’s my tax-deductible gift to support Land Institute programs.

Our research is opening Please print the way to a new agricul - Name ______ture — farming modeled on native prairie. Farmers Address ______using Natural Systems City______State______ZIP code ______Agriculture will produce food with little fertilizer I authorize The Land Institute each month to and , and build I Transfer from my checking account (enclose check for the first monthly payment) soil instead of lose it. If I Charge my credit or debit card you share this vision and I $5 I $15 I $55 I $75 I $125 I Other $ would like to help, please Deduct my tax-deductible gift on the I 5th of each month I 20th of each month. become a Friend of the Land. To do so and receive I authorize a one-time gift of The Land Report, clip or I $35 I $125 I $250 I $500 I $5,000 I Other $ ______copy this coupon and Payment method: I My check, made payable to The Land Institute, is enclosed. return it with payment to I Charge my I Visa I MasterCard I Discover

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The Land Report 31 Cornell University Library. The botanist Liberty Hyde Bailey with specimens from his hortorium, 1949. “Call it an hor - torium,” he wrote. “A repository of things of the garden—a place for the scientific study of garden plants, their documentation, their classification and their naming.”

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